Cygnus Atratus
by 1812
Summary: It is easy to go down into Hell.  Night and day, the gates of dark death stand wide open.  But to climb back again...to retrace one’s steps to the upper air...there’s the task.  Something a little different for the Twilight community.  Chapter Two is up.
1. Chapter 1

_Chapter One_

_-__  
_

The moonlight was blazing. White and clear, it burned indigo streaks across the black and starless sky, flowing softly over the clouds and spilling through the boughs of the Hawthorne trees that crowded along the river's edge. The bright sound of running water carved a path through the night, carrying cool air and fragments of reflected moonshine through the hushed woodlands. No wind stirred the trees under the canopy. She lay on her back, staring up at them. Their long branches locked like intertwining fingers: white blossoms, red fruit.

"I'm cold," she heard herself saying. Her voice sounded so small, so far away. As far as the stars she couldn't find.

The answer—a hushed whisper—came from the crook of her neck. "We wouldn't have need to be out here if your father approved of our meetings," he said. When he spoke, his lips brushed against the space beneath her chin. She shivered. "We can go indoors if you wish. But I'm afraid I shall have to say 'goodnight' if that were the case."

There was black humor in his voice. He knew she wouldn't leave—that she couldn't leave. The finality of his tone overwhelmed her.

"You're sly!" she moaned, twisting her head away in frustration. She fixed her eyes upon the low-hanging branch of a magnolia tree. Its flowers had yet to bloom, the moon-colored petals coiled tightly around the promise of a golden stigma, still and untouched. She imagined for a moment that it looked like a pale girl with her arms curled around herself, looking somberly on. "And I despise you for it," she added, pouting.

He chuckled quietly at this. His body tensed suddenly as if to stand up. "I beg your pardon," he mused, "Shall I go?"

Her head snapped forward again, their eyes locking. A shaft of white moonlight tumbled down through the leaves, spilling across flushed skin. Her eyelashes cast shadows like jagged black scars down her cheek. She spoke no word but grabbed him roughly by the collar, pulling his lips down to meet hers. Their muffled sighs and laughter were lost among the steady rush of river water.

By and by, the moon rose. A sound echoed through the hushed landscape. Though shrill and distant it was nonetheless arrestingly beautiful, like the call of a rare bird. To the girl sprawled on the wet grass, it sounded like her heart—not beating but speaking, and calling out in a strange new voice. She no longer minded the cold.

"I love you," she sighed.

"And I—what in hell was that!?"

The sound echoed again, and it reached their ears this time not as a remote and anonymous resonance but as a dissonantly rapturous warbling howl. Even as they took pause it built in intensity. Up and up it crescendoed into a keening wail. It was so aberrant that even the noise of the river seemed like the sound of water running away rather than merely running. No longer high and thin like a bird's call, it bellowed and crashed through the stillness of the air like a bull charging through paper.

"Someone is screaming," she breathed. All the tiny hairs along the back of her neck were erect.

"That's not a person," he insisted. "It's probably some kind of animal—"

"It's like someone being murdered," she said. Her voice was low and tense: she was done with being a lover and ready to become an animal who flew at the sound of an approaching predator. He grasped her firmly by one wrist.

"No one's being murdered, Josephine." He stroked her hair like she was a frightened child, but her body did not relax. He cupped her chin in his hand, tilting her face up to meet his. "Calm yourself. It's probably a wolf with its leg in a trap. It'll stop soon enough."

Crash. They both froze, staring off in the direction of the din. Crash. This time closer. The air smelled like lightning.

She started up, snatching blindly at her belongings. "I'm leaving, Adelaide. I should never have come. If my father finds us out he'll beat you within an inch of your life! Truly, I have no idea what I was—"

The crack of a huge tree branch snapping off the trunk splintered through the countryside. It was far closer this time, and the terrible wailing was inexorably following. It ghosted through the orchard, drawing towards them at an impossible speed. She turned and fled.

"W-wait! Josephine, _wait!_ You forgot your…apron?" he tried, waved an abandoned garment after her. It was white cotton, with ribboning straps dangling from the sides. "Or possibly some manner of…undergarment?" he finished weakly. She made no sign of turning back. The warm yellow lights of her father's plantation house glowed a quarter-mile away. He lingered only long enough to catch one more wild shriek before taking off after her. Seconds later, a breeze soughed through the stillness of the glade. In the darkness under the trees, no human eye could have caught site of its origin: a small girl with night-dark hair running like it was all she was born to do.

Mary Alice Brandon was tearing through the white-blossomed orchards on the east side of the Tchoutacabouffa River, and she was screaming. Blood spat out of a deep gash just above her clavicle, heaving out with every heartbeat and splattering down the front of her dressing gown. Her bare feet flew through the undergrowth, ignoring the weeds and clinging vines and logs that would have tripped her up the day before; the hour before; the breath before. But now everything was changing. Every panting mouthful of air she drew changed the world just a bit more, and she expended every molecule of oxygen in long, unbroken screams of white terror.

Her screams were beautiful and terrible, and although they were disturbing, they were not unnatural. On the contrary, it was the most natural sound to ever escape from any throat. It was the sound of endings smashing headlong into beginnings; the sound of the quotient of opportunity devouring the quotient of security; the sound of flowers blooming in Mississippi; the sound of an infant being ripped from the warm safety of the womb and being pulled, kicking and screaming, into life and all its uncertainties. Mary Alice Brandon was being born, and it hurt like hell. Pain and potential were hers tonight as she ran screaming, knocking stray branches from her path with enough force to split them from their sockets.

Whatever she had known of life before that cool spring night in 1928 was being erased by the burning sensation of poison overtaking her body and mind. Everything old was being made anew before her eyes, as if someone had pried open her skull and was a doodling fanciful new world directly onto her brain. She knew the moon had never shone like this. She knew the air had never smelled like this. She knew she had never moved like this. And as her pistoning heart drove the venom through every vein and artery and capillary, saturating every muscle with pain and power, she knew that she had never felt so alone.

_-_

"I did never know so full a voice issue from so empty a heart:

but the saying is true 'The empty vessel makes the greatest sound'."

_-_

_Author's Note_

Well, there you go. A little over-written, but it's still a decent first-chapter prelude-type thingamajig. You know the drill—please respond with your thoughts. Positive or negative criticisms are always equal in my eyes—I love improving as a writer, and I shall never do that without a little help.

(By the by, I hope I fooled you at the beginning. Who's neckin' out it the woods, eh? Is it Edward and Bella? _Is it?_ Nah, it's just some random plantation types! Naughty kids… Not to mention total throwaway characters. I'll write some E/B type stuff in this story, but not for a bit. Hope you're excited about a little Alice-centrism. Lord knows the girl deserves some attention.)


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter Two_

_-_

After three weeks of insufferable humidity, the heat wave was finally over. A rainstorm had blown through the night before and pulled all the clouds down, one by one. The day dawned clear for the first time in nearly a month, and a smooth and steady breeze had blown all the sticky dampness away by mid-morning. I stretched my arms up over my head, savoring the warmth of the sun's rays on my skin. I'd come to associate Fork's overcast skies with Edward, as he rarely put in an appearance at school when the risk of sunlight shone in the forecast. …But there was no denying it: I was a Phoenix girl, born and raised. Something about a hot sun in a fiercely blue sky made it hard to not smile.

Walking around the western side of the porch through the cool shadow cast by the Cullen's enormous house, it took my eyes a moment to adjust to the bright light of the southern sky. As the backyard came back into focus, I caught sight of something white and black lying prone in the middle of the yard. My heart started.

"Alice?" I called, trotting up to her for a closer look. She was lying on her side with her head resting gracefully on the interior of one arm. Even though she was turned away from me, I would've recognized her by the tininess of her figure alone. Despite the development of the adult portions of her body, she often looked to me like a fourteen year-old girl from behind: effortlessly thin and full of angles that would have looked awkward and coltish on any human. Of course, she was luckier than that. I pulled up next to her and peered into her face. If I didn't already know that she lacked the ability, I would've thought she was asleep. "Are you alright? What're you doing?"

A smile twitched on her otherwise motionless face. "I'm listening," she said matter-of-factly. Panic gripped me as I realized I had been too busy enjoying the sunlight to pay any attention to the sounds of the forest. I froze, straining my ears, listening—

Alice laughed. "Calm down, you dolt," she twittered, her eyes remaining closed. "I'm listening to the grass growing."

"Oh," I replied, feeling suddenly sheepish. But I brightened as I processed her words. "Can you really hear that?" I asked, fascinated with the poetic potential of such an act.

Alice smiled wider, showing her perfect white teeth. "Well, not really," she admitted. "But I can try." She opened her eyes and rolled upright as quickly as a songbird turning its head. Sunlight glanced through her skin when she moved, splashing light across the grass. "You're looking for Edward, I assume?"

"Guilty," I professed. "Nobody answered at the front door, so I figured I'd come poking around the back. Y'know, like a crazy neighbor. Only I don't live near you and I don't own lots and lots of cats." I coughed, finding my sarcasm hitting a little too close to home. "Anyway, is he here?"

Alice was looking off across the enormous yard, a thoughtful light in her face. "Hmmm, he's out right now," she said vaguely. "I thought you had to work this morning."

I spun around in a lopsided circle, clapping my hands. "A pipe burst in the supply room! A pipe burst in the supply room!" I sang. "I'll be off for the whole week if I'm lucky, and I'm still getting paid for my shift today!" Somewhere in the back of my head, a little voice was telling me that a good person would feel bad for Mike's parents. The water had leaked through boxes and boxes full of inventory and supply sheets, and it would take ages to sort out the sopping mess. And then there was the mildew factor…

Thank God I wasn't a good person.

The tone in Alice's voice told me that I wasn't going to be seeing Edward or any of the other Cullens today. Perhaps they'd gone hunting; Edward's ability to be cagey and evasive was powerful enough to be classified as a superpower, and he was always twice as vague when it came to his eating habits. But then why would Alice have stayed behind?

"Umm…Bella?" she was asking. "Was there anything else you wanted to do today?"

"Oh." It had never occurred to me before, but hearing a vampire say "umm" seemed a lot like hearing a doctor say "whoops"—it almost never happened, and when it did it got your attention. And as soon as _that _occurred to me, all I could imagine was Carlisle saying '_umm…whoops!'_ There were many times I was grateful for my immunity from Edward's gift, and this was one of them. Stupid thoughts probably rang as clear as a bell for miles and miles around. "Oh. No, not really. I guess I could catch up on some stuff I've been meaning to do around the house. Like, y'know…mopping."

"Ah," she replied, arching her brows in mock veneration. "Well then. I _was _going to ask you to come with me on a little field trip, but I would _never _want to take you away from _mopping…_"

"It's highly earth-shattering," I assured her, "but I'm sure I can find a way to pencil it in."

She clapped her hands together in theatrical appreciation, sending little prisms of light flying across the shady underbellies of the trees. "Oh, thank you, thank you! Your generosity knows no bounds!"

"It's not too far, is it?"

"No, no—strictly local. No farther than La Push, but we're not going east. Shall I drive?"

"Please." Almost as soon as I'd said it, I regretted it. The last time I'd driven with Alice we had barreled down the streets of Italy at double the legal limit in a stolen Porsche. "…At reasonable speeds only," I amended. "And only in cars that are your own."

Alice laughed brightly. "Cross my heart," she said sweetly, drawing her finger across her unbeating chest.

-

We were driving north on route 101, but beyond that I still wasn't sure where we were going. Alice was behaving herself nicely on the road. Her hands were held firmly at ten-o-clock and two-o-clock on the steering wheel: the very picture of a safe driver. I didn't dare look at the speedometer, but if we were speeding, it wasn't excessively. Beyond the tinted windows of her car, the sun was climbing. Maybe it was going to turn out to be a hot day after all.

We rode in silence for a while. Before long the hazy pattern of alternating sunlight and shadow sliding up the hood of the car made me a little drowsy. A soft female voice was issuing from the stereo.

_ Skylark—have you seen a valley green with spring where my heart can go a-journeying?  
Over the shadows and the rain to a blossom-covered lane?_

Alice was humming along quietly, her eyes fixed on the road.

_ And in your lonely flight haven't you heard the music of the night?  
Wonderful music. Faint as a will-o-the-wisp, crazy as a loon,  
Sad as a gypsy serenading the moon?  
_

…Sounded like an old song.

"You know, it's no wonder you get into so much trouble, Bella," she said, breaking the silence. "'Hi Bella! Would you like to jump in my car and drive to an undisclosed location without telling anyone where you're going?' 'Oh, sure, Alice! Let me get my coat!'" I laughed. Her impersonation of me was pretty accurate. "You drive Edward crazy like that. But I think he'll settle down once they hurry up and invent a GPS microchip that can be embedded into people."

"According to X-Files, that ship has already flown," I parried.

"Ah! True. Was there ever an X-Files episode about vampires?"

"Probably," I considered. "They probably had a whole two-parter about how vampires assassinated Kennedy with magical guns given to them by aliens." Sometimes it was strange for me to think about the Cullens watching TV. They seemed…too urbane for MTV and ABC and E!. Especially E!. I wasn't even sure how it was possible for them to exist in the same world that produced _The Simple Life._ On the other hand, if I couldn't sleep, I'd probably become a TV addict.

…Of course, that was my eventual goal.

I sighed. Being with Edward made it easy to consider the possibility of my turning very abstractly. But there were a thousand practical questions that I wanted to ask. Despite the support of nearly the rest of his family, Edward was still staunchly opposed any immediate change in my humanity. Whenever the subject arose, he cherry-picked which questions he would answer and danced around anything that might've encouraged me. It was a frustrating dilemma: on paper, I think he knew that it was my right to make a fully informed decision. But in his heart, he probably thought that he was protecting me.

"…Ass."

Alice pivoted in her seat. "Excusez-moi?" she asked, looking incredulous.

"OH!" I clapped a hand over my mouth. "N-nothing," I mumbled through my hand. "I just…uh, wanted to ask you a question."

"Go ahead," she prompted, a baffled look still plastered on her perfect porcelain features.

My mind went blank. I grasped at the first thing that came to mind: "Uh—is this an old song? It sounds really old." As soon as the words left my mouth, I realized the song might have been old enough to be something from her childhood. I amended: "I mean—_you're _not old, or anything. Well, you are _old_, but you're not _old-_old. Not like an _old _person. Y'know?" Sometimes, the things that came out of my mouth amazed even me. Alice just looked blasted.

"Err, this song's actually pretty recent. It's a k d lang. From the early nineties," she said slowly. "But you're half-right—it's her version of an old jazz standard. I think I first heard it back towards the end of the war—World War II, I mean." She paused. "Is that really what you meant to ask?"

"No," I admitted. "I guess what I really meant was…do you do your laundry?"

Perhaps if I were ever turned into a vampire, my unique ability would be to _keep my big mouth shut._

But Alice had a wise look on her face—the kind of expression that betrayed a small glimmer of her true age. "I see. Sounds like you're in serious need of a game of _quid pro quo_. Or shall I say _quid non quo_—something for nothing?"

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. Edward was supposed to be the one with the gift for reading people, but Alice was no slouch. "Mm-hmm. There's just some things that I don't know, and a lot of things I just _can't _ask Edward."

Alice nodded graciously, her short black hair bouncing as we hit a small pothole. "Go ahead, then."

"Well, _do _you do the laundry? I mean, do you even get dirty?"

"Of course. We don't sweat or anything like that—we don't have body fluids, you see—but there's still dirt in the world. Clothing still wrinkles and stretches. So, yes. I'm anal retentive about my clothing so I do my own, but Esme does everyone else's. She's home all day while we're at school and Carlisle's at the hospital, so it just works out that way. But we all take turns giving her a break on weekends, though. Chores can get a little monotonous when you live indefinitely."

I nodded. "Okay. So, wait, you don't have _any _boy fluids? Can you cry?"

Alice shook her head. "No so far as I've discovered."

"Is there more to discover? I mean…" What did I want to say? "…How much is unknown to you, after all these years?"

"Well, let me put it this way," she stated carefully, "You know that humans can cry because you've cried, and your mother's cried, and your father's cried, and your friends have cried, and people you've never met before in other countries have cried, and dead people cried in history books. You've got a reasonable cross-section to look at. I, on the other hand, am intimately familiar with less than a dozen vampires. My people don't have a written history—or at least, not a reliable one. Bram Stoker definitely stretched a few truths, and Anne Rice is just a blatant fibber. It's just harder to understand something when there's less of it."

I tried to imagine for a moment what it would be like to live without the guidance of history. More specifically, I thought about books. Where would I be—where would anyone be?—if I couldn't read the direct words of people who'd gone before me? How would I recognize love if Byron hadn't described the symptoms so perfectly? To feel such a burning, consuming, obsessive passion for another person would feel like madness if I hadn't been told to expect love.

_But how would I know what madness was either?_

I realized that I knew what Alice was speaking about. Beneath her words about tears and history, she was talking about the bloodlust. Like love, it promised to be something incontrovertible—a senseless frenzy. A carnal appetite of the body. "Edward said…that you woke up alone," I tried. She said nothing, but drove on in silence, her medium eyes on the road. "There was no one…to tell you. You didn't know anything…when you turned…did you?"

When she spoke, there was no change in her face. "The number zero is a human construct, you know," she said suddenly. Her expression was immutable. "In nature, there's no such thing as zero. There are five baby birds in a nest, and then there are four, then three, then two, then one. That's the end. If the nest is empty, then it's just a nest—not a nest with zero birds. It took thousands of years to arithmetic theory to describe the concept of zero. Now it seems like common sense, but think of how hard it would be to work it out alone?" She glanced at me, and there was wistful sadness in her kind face. "It was hard for me. It took me several years to calm down. I was…unmanageable." A weak smile broke across her lips, and she arched her eyebrows with feigned enthusiastically. And, you know, I'm almost glad that it took me so long to find Jasper, and Carlisle and everyone. My self-control was a long time coming."

I realized then how prying and nosy I was being. Alice was trying to accommodate and assure me, and here I was dredging up her recollections of the most painful experience of her long life. Sensing that there was nothing left in that topic that wouldn't lead Alice to painful memories, I cast it aside in favor of another.

"Um, body fluids! No body fluids at all, you say? This is going so sound so gross, but… Um, does that mean that you don't—uh—" I made a gesture against my lap, trying to indicate excreta as tastefully as possible. Alice watched out of the corner of her eye.

"Well, no," she said, sounding both very serious and very amused. "You've got to spend life to make life, and vampires come up short on the giving end of the bargin."

I blinked. How did this relate to urine?

"I think the phrase is 'shooting blanks,' Bella."

It took me about fifteen seconds for the significance of that phraseto sink in, and another five for me to turn the brightest shade of red I have ever turned. I covered my face with my hands and moaned. "Oh GOD, Alice! I was trying to ask about PEE!" I felt the car swerve in the lane as Alice gripped the steering wheel, bursting into uproarious laughter.

"Since _when,_" she giggled breathlessly, miming my hand gesture, "Since _when_ does _this _mean _pee?_"

Still beside myself with embarrassment, I couldn't hold back laughter either. Soon we were both choking with mirth. Through my laughter, some part of my brain was recording this memory. I knew, without question, that Alice would be my best friend for the rest of my life, and for the rest of whatever came after that. I knew that this would be a moment—a snapshot in time—that I would remember even if I grew as old as the sun. My relationship with Alice felt as easy and natural and wholly inevitable as my relationship with Edward—even if the two were completely different. Life was just too perfect today. Sun; friends; love; dirty hand gestures; a woman singing softly on the radio; a destination unknown. Everything I needed. Family.

I didn't know what I'd done to deserve this. And if this was luck, then I was too lucky.

"For your information…" Alice's clear voice brought me back to myself. "No, we don't. Pee. Urine is waste—all the by-products of digestion that the body can't utilize, like ammonia. The blood we consume is absorbed into the blood stream through the stomach and large intestine—just like with your food. See, when you eat French fries, it gives you a boost because the sodium is absorbed into the blood stream and delivered to the rest of the body. It's consumed, but it's not designed to reside there permanently. The blood we consume _is_. It never even reaches the lower intestines."

She turned to me and smiled. "So, no wee-wee! I hope that's not a disappointment." I shook my head, grinning and still blushing a bit. Alice ran her white fingers through her cropped black hair. "You know, I do believe we've crossed every bridge in our relationship. I mean, I've seen you naked."

"Yup," I confirmed, nodding and remembering the total humility of needing help bathing myself after my "accident".

"Now we're talking about bodily fluids—in great detail."

"Yup," I confirmed again.

"Anything else you have a pressing need to discuss?"

She was right. Whatever barriers existed between us had officially been torn down. "Well, actually. Just one, maybe. It's very girly. Do vampires… I mean, you don't… I wouldn't have my period anymore, would I?"

Alice shook her head. "Nope."

"_YES!" _I said, pumping my arms in victory. "Talk about up-sides!"

"Actually—"

"_Don't say it's not an up-side,_" I commanded. "That's _not _something I will miss."

"Actually, I take that back. I'm 99 sure that you wouldn't, but you'd have to ask Rosalie or Esme to be sure."

That baffled me. Alice was still looking forward down the road, but her face was less placid than before. She looked almost troubled. "Alice?" I prompted nervously.

"Oh, it's just—I didn't. In my life, I didn't…" She trailed off before reaching the last word.

"You didn't…menstruate? I thought you were nineteen when you were turned."

She blinked. "I was."

"Oh." Suddenly I felt terrible. I also felt like I was trapped in an after-school special. "Well, that's normal!" I said quickly, trying to cover. "Everyone starts at a different time, you know? It's normal for some people to start really late, or really early. I had a friend who when she was eight—"

"Oh, I started," she said with indifference that sounded false. "Just, when I was older, I didn't." She smiled brightly and shifted the subject so deftly that I would have missed it if I hadn't been paying attention closely. "But don't be bashful about asking Esme or Rosalie! They want you to make an informed decision, and it's a perfectly reasonable question."

I swallowed, and nodded.

"Anything else you wanted to ask?"

"No," I replied. "Not really, no."

"Okay. Well, we're almost there. If you think of anything else…"

She trailed off with a cheerful tone, but her smile did not reach her eyes. We drove on, following the road as it curved slightly east.

Looking at Alice, something about her struck me as odd today. Her cropped black hair was, as always, pointing artistically in every direction. Her eyes were the same mellow brown as was normal at this point in her feeding cycle. And, of course, her clothing was intimidatingly stylish. But realization dawned upon me that it _was_ her clothing—more specifically, her shirt—that was disquieting. It was a boat-necked number with wide black-and-white horizontal stripes—very Audrey Hepburn. Only someone as small as Alice could've pulled it off. But the thick stripes of white across the shirt so precisely matched the anti-color of her colorless skin that the black parts looked like the dangling shreds of something that had been mauled. I involuntarily shivered.

"Tch! I'm sorry," Alice murmured. "Is it cold in here? Just play around with the A/C—you don't have to ask." She took her eyes from the road for a brief second, flashing a concerned grin my direction. "It's not like I can tell, right?"

I leaned forward and dialed the temperature control from blue to red. "Mmm. Right."

-

"I think my foot is in bear poop," I said, examining the viscous mystery fluid coating the heel of my left sneaker. "Are we almost there?"

Alice nodded, pointing at an almost indiscernible path through the trees. We'd followed Route 101 east until we hit a miniscule town called Beaver. A sign pointed us to north again to Lake Pleasant. It was such a nice day out that the lakeside was crowded with townspeople. I'd watched them nervously, thinking of Alice's "skin condition," but she'd driven past them and parked at the dead end of a dirt road. We'd picked our way through the light woods, Alice roving ahead and showing me the easiest way.

"Here we are!" she said, pointing at the bright points of shining water peering through the trees. She darted silently ahead, and I clamored through behind her.

The southern end of the lake was crowded with families and young couples enjoying the weather, but the surface of the water was almost a mile long. No one would be able to spot two stragglers on the far side of the lake, and the brightness of Alice's skin would be easily mistaken as sunlight shining on the water from such a distance.

I joined my friend by the side of the water. She'd already slipped her shoes off and had plunked her toes into the water. I squatted on the unmowed grass next to her and pulled off my socks and shoes. I expected the water to be freezing, but when I tentatively dipped my big toe in, it was warm and clear. I submerged my feet up to the ankles so that the soles of my feet touched the soft mud that lined the bank.

Tendrils of silt rose up between my toes and curled around the roots of water lilies. The current pulled them along invisible roads under the surface of the water while the white flowers floated above them like soft, living clouds. "Neat," I breathed. "This place would be perfect for a picnic."

"It's perfect for swimming," Alice corrected.

"Yeah…" I agreed. "No one can see us all the way out here. It's too bad we didn't bring swimsuits."

"Swimsuits!?" Alice demanded. Her voice was suddenly far behind me. I turned to see her standing back at the edge of the forest. She was crouched low to the ground like an elegant white cat poised to spring. Before I could blink, she was hurdling headlong towards the lake. Its surface was like a mirror; as still as glass, the strange glistening light of Alice's skin bounced off it like sunlight. "Who needs swimsuits?!"

_I should probably move my shoes before they— _A wave reached out to touch my face. I was soaked before I could complete the thought.

"Alice!" I shrieked, spluttering. "You're dead!"

Impish laughter echoed across the water. "I know!"

I pulled the back of my hand across my forehead, dragging strands of limp wet hair out of my face. Seeing the glint of revenge in my eye, she splashed through the shore and into deeper water, shrieking in affected terror. I follower her clumsily, alternating between menacing growls and uncorked laughter with every step.

_-_

"A kind word is like a Spring day."

_-_

_Author's Note_

Sorry for such a slow update; writing is not my primary hobby. I received some very kind words about the first chapter, and if you reviewed the story or sent me a personal message regarding it, I should thank you very much.

Writing in the first person is not my specialty; in particular, I do not excel at writing in Bella's voice. She seems well-read and intelligent, but I've never seen that carry over in the narrative. I restricted my vocabulary and tried to show more wit to make her interesting enough to carry a chapter on her own. I don't know if I succeeded. The next chapter shall be in the third person again, which is my darling.

I hope you enjoy this chapter. I've planned out four total, but everything is in the air after that. As I said, it's not my primary hobby, so I am unsure if I will write more than that.

And please pardon any grammatical errors; at the insistence of my Twilight-obsessed charge, I have posted it without edits or even a read-though. This one's very stream-of-conscious, and likely unpolished because of it.


End file.
